Adam Reichardt: Though Milan Kundera was an internationally recognized author with some ground-breaking books and essays, he was a really non-public individual. You knew him personally. How would you describe Kundera, as an individual, author and colleague?
Samuel Abrahám: True, he was very non-public, however whoever knew him was struck by his humour and joie de vivre. He advised us many humorous tales about his beginnings in France, usually making enjoyable of himself, and he managed to catch you in his internet of jokes, if unguarded. Above all, it was an incredible image to see him and his spouse Věra, who had been so shut and likewise mental friends.
I might not name myself a buddy however somebody with whom I might correspond and sometimes talk about issues that us essentially the most: philosophy and classical music. I’ve recognized Kundera since 2000. The explanation I contacted him was fairly ironic on reflection. After the far-right Austrian politician Jörg Haider turn out to be a part of the governing coalition, my pals at Eurozine determined to maneuver the annual European Assembly of Cultural Journals from Vienna to Bratislava. Having simply completed studying Kundera’s Betrayed Testaments, I prompt we invite Kundera because the keynote speaker, with a view to make our sudden occasion in Bratislava extra engaging.
To entice him to answer, I added a assessment that I had printed about his ebook of essays. In fact, this was nonetheless the age of faxes. To my shock, inside a number of hours, the machine was churning out a reply from Milan Kundera! He apologised that he wouldn’t come to Bratislava, explaining that he didn’t attend conferences or public occasions. But, he was actually happy with my assessment, writing that I highlighted so nicely the gist of his essay.
For me it was the start of a wealthy mental encounter with the good author. After the fax ceased to exist in 2004 or 2005, he refused to have his personal e mail deal with. So we corresponded via his spouse. Typically he wrote and generally Věra would reply, quoting his messages. However we had an extended correspondence, which regularly included Věra’s added phrases and ideas.
This alternate lasted for a number of years earlier than my spouse and I lastly met him in individual in Paris. At our assembly, I expressed my want to translate these books that had been written in French into Slovak. I argued that in the event that they could possibly be translated into Serbian, Slovenian and Japanese, then why not Slovak? He laughed at the concept that the Czechs could be pressured to learn his books in Slovak. A glass of excellent Armagnac sealed the deal.
The explanation for this unusual association was that he didn’t permit his French books to be translated into Czech by anybody however himself. However then he added that he didn’t have time to do it, for he would somewhat write one other ebook. Solely not too long ago did the Brno publishing home Atlantis begin to translate his work into Czech and Slovak.
He didn’t belief any translator to translate his works into Czech?
There are some humorous tales relating to this. He advised me about when a Russian girl got here to see them about translating one in every of his novels. After a really nice assembly they agreed. However when she despatched the manuscript, he went via the interpretation and was horrified. And he advised me, ‘You understand, I hate to learn Russian, however this translation was so terrible that I needed to learn it and, in the long run, I refused to let it’s printed.’
The expertise made him very cautious concerning the translation of his texts into any language. How did he test the Korean or Indian translations? I do not know. However he and his spouse, who was his supervisor for a few years, developed an important relationship with their publishers and, I suppose, trusted them. Not way back Věra wrote to me to say that the Czech translator Anna Kareninová, who’s translating the novels, is great and that Kundera was happy. He was fairly unwell for some time and sooner or later, he should have given up on the intention to translate his books into his native Czech himself.
Kundera by no means authorised a biography, which implies we shouldn’t have a full perception into his life and experiences. Why was Kundera in opposition to this?
Kundera didn’t take into account his life story necessary, solely his texts. Furthermore, solely these writings he accepted, like a composer designating opus numbers, had been to seem in collected works. In that respect, as he wrote someplace, he adopted Gustave Flaubert, who additionally wished to be hidden behind the novel. Kundera as soon as wrote that ‘all the things I wish to categorical is in my books … me as an individual, I’m not attention-grabbing.’ For instance, he wrote of Hemingway, with some frustration, that extra books had been written and examine him than his books. That is what Kundera wished to keep away from.
There was a big biography written by an exile Czech writer, Ján Novak, who wrote about Kundera’s life in Czechoslovakia earlier than he left for France. The ebook was controversial and, after its publication, Věra Kunderová advised me that she wouldn’t even present it to Kundera, who was fairly unwell by then. She was horrified that the ebook described Kundera’s relationship along with his father in a really unfavourable manner, which might have harm him. For, as Věra insisted, Kundera beloved and adored his father. That is probably why Kundera detested biographies – he knew that when they’re written, they tackle a lifetime of their very own.
Do you assume there shall be a biography now that he has handed away?
I’m certain there shall be many biographies. Apparently, the identical writer is now writing a second half, on Kundera’s life after he left Czechoslovakia. I actually have little interest in studying these books; a few interviews with Novak had been sufficient for me. Extra importantly, now that Kundera’s books are being translated into Czech (and Slovak), he’s being rediscovered by the brand new technology. For now, it is just his novels, however I hope the interpretation of his profound essays won’t take too lengthy to publish. In truth, after we met, we mentioned the potential of me publishing his essays in Slovak. He twice gave me permission to publish his books, however after a number of weeks he would name or write that he couldn’t do it to his pals in Brno – Slovak being so near Czech for him, and he felt they need to seem first in Czech.
Kundera left Czechoslovakia in 1975 and relocated in France. Why do you assume he made this determination? Had he lastly given up hope after the failure of the Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion?
We should always not overlook what the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia meant to us. It was a tragedy, particularly after all of the hope of ’68. The Nineteen Sixties slowly relaxed the environment in Czechoslovakia, but it surely actually sped up after the memorable Czechoslovak Writers’ Congress in 1967, which was organised by the editor of the Slovak cultural journal Kultúrny Život, Juraj Špitzer. Kundera wrote to me that Špitzer persuaded him to talk on the Congress. Even then Kundera was not eager on giving public speeches. However he agreed, and gave a memorable speech, like many others in attendance, together with Václav Havel and Ludvík Vaculík.
The Congress was one of the vital necessary mental occasions of the time. From that second on, issues sped up, resulting in Alexander Dubček coming to energy in January 1968. Rapidly, there was an sudden leisure of censorship and initiation of reforms. Many communists who felt betrayed and who had been imprisoned within the Nineteen Fifties, however who had been true communists, thought they might revive socialism. This was the origin of the expression ‘socialism with a human face’. There was a perception, probably mistaken on reflection, that socialism could possibly be extra humane, pluralistic and free.
The extent of mental discourse inside Czechoslovakia was unbelievable. Literary journals like Kultúrny Život and Litrerárni noviny had print-runs of over 100 thousand per week. However in fact, Russia, then the Soviet Union, couldn’t permit this democratic commotion to succeed on the periphery of its huge empire. The reforms might have had a domino impact amongst different nations within the bloc. And so, on 21 August 1968, the Kremlin ordered half 1,000,000 troopers to occupy each village, each city of Czechoslovakia.
Though a number of folks had been killed, there was no navy or violent resistance from the Czechs and Slovaks. Resistance took the type of peaceable defiance, solidarity and bitter humour. I bear in mind how, as an eight-year-old, I might stroll for hours with my sister round Bratislava. Inside two or three days of the invasion, each window and each wall on the road was peppered with posters with jokes, caricatures and texts ridiculing the invaders. Within the first few months there was unbelievable solidarity among the many inhabitants, and the quisling authorities that Moscow hoped to put in didn’t take over. There was nonetheless this nice hope and superb power which emanated from the defiance of the entire inhabitants. It was a Gandhian resistance for nearly six months.
However all these hopes and aspirations had been finally smashed. The Moscow-directed regime, led by Gustáv Husák and put in in 1969, step by step initiated political purges of something associated to the reforms of 1968. Particularly, it focused the mental elite and celebration members who supported the Prague Spring. Everybody who had some place was obliged to signal a humiliating letter stating that they agreed to the ‘brotherly assist of the Warsaw Pact military’. Intellectuals who refused to signal had been expelled and misplaced their jobs and standing. They had been pressured to seek out handbook work or stay with out work, though there have been comparatively few jail sentences.
One of many hundreds of thousands purged was Kundera. He couldn’t publish or educate and, like many Slovak and Czech intellectuals, was pressured into inside exile and have become an outcast. When he acquired an invite to show on the college in Rennes, he first went there formally. However when he printed some books which the regime discovered unacceptable, he was stripped of his Czechoslovak citizenship and couldn’t return.
Apparently, he didn’t turn out to be a member of the nation’s dissident circles. In fact, he knew them nicely, it was a small group. His place to face the occupiers differed from the small group of dissidents, together with Havel. In The Energy of the Powerless, Havel described dwelling in reality – a philosophical method on how to withstand the official lie by insisting on telling and dwelling in reality, regardless of the prices. Kundera discovered it somewhat dramatic and elitist and believed that an outcast should face the cynical communist regime via irony and humour.
Some dissidents discovered his method somewhat superfluous and ineffective. So Kundera turned remoted inside a really mental circle. In addition to, as Milan Uhde, Kundera’s buddy and dissident, wrote not too long ago: as soon as Kundera’s books had been printed in France with nice acclaim, there was a lot envy from amongst his fellow intellectuals.
One in all Kundera’s most necessary items, which has had a profound affect, is the 1984 essay entitled ‘The tragedy of Central Europe’. This piece of writing gave an company to our area throughout a time by which something like that was being eaten away by Soviet-led communism. How related is Kundera’s essay from at the moment’s perspective? Can we are saying that the area has overcome its kidnapping a technology after becoming a member of NATO and the European Union? How can we have a look at the essay via the lens of what’s taking place in Ukraine?
The essay was first printed within the French journal Le débat in 1983. The unique title was ‘The Kidnapped West’; it was the New York Evaluation of Books that modified the title in 1984. Kundera was not very keen on the change as a result of it altered the main target.
Within the early Nineteen Eighties, we by no means thought that we might stay to see the top of the Soviet empire. But that was just some years earlier than its collapse. Within the essay, Kundera castigated the West for giving up on its foundations, values, historical past and rules, saying that it had turn out to be complacent with the established order. He tried to point out how beneficial Central Europe was, in its historic improvement, multicultural mosaic of languages, cultures, histories, philosophies, and that this a part of the world was as ‘West’ as Berlin or Paris.
He was very disillusioned. Not solely was the West giving up on Central Europe, however Central Europe was more and more a premonition, an early warning of what might occur to the West. Kundera wrote that Europe didn’t even discover the top of its nice cultural dwelling, that Europe not felt its unity as a unity of tradition. And that’s the reason it was really easy for the West to surrender on Central Europe. Kundera was saddened and alarmed by this.
That’s the reason the essay was admired by so many western intellectuals who had comparable issues. What really unified Europe? Was it simply borders, laws, forms and financial system? And what had occurred to the religious area, how would Europe outline its values, rules, tradition or historical past? Kundera wrote within the essay that when he spoke to his French pals about this situation, they talked as a substitute of TV exhibits or gossip.
After the autumn of the Soviet Empire, the essay appeared to lose its objective. The ‘Kidnapped West’ had been liberated. Nonetheless, after 40 years of publication, it regains relevance. What unifies Europe now’s the defence of Ukraine. Its defeat by imperial Russia would symbolize the defeat of that religious realm that Kundera was so keen on, and whose gradual demise he was so unhappy about. So, in that sense, I feel his essay continues to be related at the moment.
Paradoxically, after I requested Kundera in 2011 to permit his well-known essay to be republished within the ebook But One other Europe after 1984, edited by the Lithuanian thinker and MEP Leonidas Donskis, Kundera refused. He wrote me an extended and somewhat apologetic letter explaining that he thought-about that essay ‘an occasional textual content’ (příležitostní) that belonged to the time however that shouldn’t be republished. So we devoted the ebook to Kundera and his well-known essay with out together with the essay itself. In truth, he refused to have it included in his collected works, printed by Gallimard. It’s a curious irony that simply earlier than Kundera handed away, Gallimard republished the essay underneath its authentic title ‘Kidnapped West’, alongside along with his well-known speech on the Czechoslovak writers’ congress in 1967. That is maybe an indication of its relevance.
It actually could be helpful to re-read the essay with at the moment’s perspective in thoughts…
The essay began an incredible debate not solely within the West but in addition in Central Europe amongst intellectuals and dissidents. The talk centred on whether or not the area might re-emerge as a unit that had been divided and destroyed by the Soviet invasion. If borders turned fluid and free once more, many intellectuals requested within the late Nineteen Eighties, what form, what construction ought to Central Europe have?
This debate got here to a sudden halt in January 1990, when the communist regimes fell. Nonetheless, the creation of the Visegrád Group in 1991 by three dissident leaders – Havel, Antall and Wałęsa – was, to some extent, an homage to that examined and beforehand ‘kidnapped’ Central Europe. Renewed curiosity in that essay at the moment is an indication that the talk on Central Europe is price revisiting. As a result of Europe within the Nineteen Eighties was a premonition of the destiny of Ukraine at the moment.
How will Kundera be remembered on this area and his dwelling nation, the Czech Republic?
A significant conflagration surrounding Kundera has been going down in his homeland since 2008, when he was accused by the Czech weekly Respekt of informing on somebody in 1951. This individual was getting back from the West and dwelling in a dormitory the place Kundera additionally lived. I have no idea whether or not Kundera did this or not – the proof could be very inconclusive – however the way in which by which the claims had been offered was disgusting. The article was printed with out contacting Kundera and based mostly on analysis executed by somebody who had a private cause to exonerate his uncle.
Respekt printed the difficulty on the day of the opening of the Frankfurt Ebook Honest, and the file was translated into English and distributed to the contributors of the ebook honest. It was additionally despatched out to excessive colleges across the Czech Republic. Kundera was shocked and felt very harm by this. I bear in mind speaking to him afterwards and he was completely distraught. ‘That is an assassination of an writer!’, he exclaimed into the cellphone.
At first, I assumed the weekly wished to sensationalise the story for the sake of revenue. However not too long ago, Milan Uhde, a dissident and shut buddy of Kundera and Havel, revealed that in 1984 Havel organised a petition among the many Czech dissidents to not have the Nobel Prize awarded to Kundera. Uhde wrote that had he had recognized that the petition was not simply to assist Jaroslav Seifert – who finally received the prize – however was an ‘anyone however Kundera’ petition, he wouldn’t have signed it. Uhde discovered it very disturbing that this was executed to Kundera by his pals, colleagues and fellow dissidents.
This revelation, along with the Respekt accusation, made Kundera very bitter. Evidently, the hostility between Kundera and Havel had been fairly palpable – originating again within the Nineteen Sixties. A number of days after Kundera died, I corresponded with Věra. She wrote that that they had actually wished to have been capable of come dwelling, to spend their final years in Brno. However they couldn’t due to the accusation. I can’t verify it, however she even prompt that Havel had been conscious of the accusation concocted by Respekt in 2008. It’s such a tragic story that Kundera needed to die in Paris, alone, regardless of his needs to return to his beloved Brno.
What makes this tragedy much more unhappy is that for many years lots of his books weren’t translated into Czech and Slovak, whereas the entire world might learn them in a whole bunch of translations. It is just now that he’s lastly returning dwelling as an writer, mental and prophet of Central Europe, as one other well-known son of this liberated ‘Kidnapped West’ who died in exile. I hope that he shall be cherished and found by every new technology, as a result of there’s a lot to find in his novels and essays and his ideas. As with all classics, his work could have distinctive relevance for every subsequent technology.
Milan Kundera died on 11 July 2023 in Paris on the age of 94. He was born in Brno in 1929.
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